The suggestion in Letters 29th January that immigration is the reason for a council housing shortage is racist and ill informed. These are the lies that the BNP and other fascist parties use to divide communities who are all on the receiving end of poor policy.

The shortage in council housing is because consecutive governments and councils have sold housing stock without replacing it. The shortage puts house prices and rent up and makes it more difficult for people to own their home either personally or through co-operative housing.

The council allows property development companies to throw up hundreds of one bedroom apartments for maximum profit and then lets them buy out of the social housing obligations and market the ‘homes’ at London’s overspill.

This kind of approach does not serve the interests of anyone but the developers, the bankers and the far right! Cambridge needs family and community homes that are well designed and well built with good transport, social spaces and amenities.

Our local elected representatives must campaign for more council housing as part of a city wide plan not make excuses for the pro market ideologies that create these housing conditions. They will however write to this page claiming that central governments don’t give them any money to build council housing and that the planning committee is not to cast political judgement. Well what do our councillors do? They should shout a little louder for public housing or it is their own hands they have tied.

Labels: Local Respect, No Fire Cuts, Oakington/Immigration, Unite/Anti Racism

Another eight Cambridge residents have been arrested during a protest outside the Trident Submarine Base at Faslane on the Clyde in Scotland this weekend.

Those arrested were among 50 others demonstrating this at the base on Saturday and Sunday. They are the third group from Cambridge to partake in a year long blockade of the base that aims to halt government plans to replace Trident - Britain’s nuclear submarines.

The eight were held for 12 hours at Dumbarton and Clydebank Police stations under the charge of breach of the peace. The group told police they were upholding international law, which prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons. All were released without charge. The number of arrested at the base is now 493 since October.


Denise Knowelden, Respect County Council Candidate, said she did not want her three children or their families to grow up with the threat of nuclear war:

"The government would be committing Britain to Nuclear weapons until 2054. When faced with climate change there are so many more productive things to do with advanced science. Each Trident submarine carries 48 nuclear warheads, 8 times the power of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people. Why would anyone want to do that again?"

Also amongst those arrested was Jannie Brightman (Convenor of The Cambridge Stop the War) Coalition. She said:

“The blockades at Faslane illustrates a ground swell of public opinion that will also see tens of thousands take to the streets of London and Glasgow on February the 24th to call for ‘No to trident Replacement and Troops Home from Iraq’. We are urging people to come on the demonstration as well as write to their MP asking them to vote against the £76bn replacement program that could come before parliament this March”


Cambridge MP Cambridge David Howarth has signed the early day motion (1113) which calls for a pubic debate on the issue of Replacing trident Nuclear Missiles. He has not yet stated which way he would vote on the issue.

Many campaigners have highlighted the hypocrisy surrounding the cost and legality of the replacement proposals. Local lecturer Jill Eastland and I were arrested at Faslane in October whilst trying to present a cheque for £76bn to the security staff at the base. Jill said:

“ This Government has spent billions bombing Iraq on the pretext that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass destruction, now they are asking taxpayer to break international law and rebuild Trident. At the same time staff where I work have been made redundant and A level courses cut because there is not enough money.”

Other public sector workers have made the connection. 30 health professionals, dressed in paramedic-style clothing bearing the slogan Trident Health Warning, lay down in front of the base on Friday – 9 arrests were made.

Stop the War are organising coaches from Cambridge to the demonstration on the 24th of February £3/£5. Call 07712 893552 or 01223 328912 email: cambridge@stopwar.org.uk

Labels: No Nukes

On January 24, for the first time in two and a half years, MPs debated the Iraq war. Tony Blair showed his contempt for parliament and for the British people, by missing the debate and speaking instead to the Confederation of British Industries.

Labels: Stop the War

'Keep our NHS public' have produced an excellent new report documenting the privitisation of the NHS. If you want to get involved in the local campaign to save the NHS please contact me.

Read the summary of the 'Keep our NHS Public' report here
Visit the Keep our NHS Public website

Labels: NHS privitisation

The Cambridge Stop the War Group protested in the Market Square last Saturday to raise the issue of Trident replacement, the upcoming blockage of the Scottish navel base this weekend by Cambridge people and the Stop the War/CND demonstration being held in central London on Saturday 24th February.



The government is absolutely adamant that it is going to replace trident and commit Britain to a new generation of nuclear weapons. More dangerous and more expensive then before. The commitment is also one that links us to Washington’s foreign policies, and thus its pro market, environmentally and socially exploitative global economic project.

When half the world's population can’t get a proper meal every day and in the most resorce rich places on the planet people die from starvation, how can we use our technological knowhow to build killing machines to keep the poor down? At a time when the government is struggling to rebuild Schools that are falling appart and our Hospitals are in funding crisis, when there is a housing and transport crisis, how on earth can you justify a £76bn financial commitment? When the Government uses WMD’s to start a war with Iraq and is now constructing a case against Iran on the same grounds how can we go ahead with the proliferation of our own WMD’s?



Please support Cambridge Faslane 365 group this weekend.

Labels: No Nukes

The government’s obsession with involving the private sector in the running of schools is set to plummet to new depths.

Tony Blair announced at the end of last year that he wanted to see a massive increase in the number of city academy schools from the current 46 to 400 by 2010.

Each city academy costs £25-30 million to open. Private sponsors invest up to £2 million in each school, while the government funds the rest. In return the private sponsors gain significant influence on how the schools are run.

There has rightly been criticism of existing sponsors such as evangelical Christian car salesman Peter Vardy. But perhaps more worrying is the involvement of corporate giants like UBS and Toshiba in making decisions about our children’s education.

The government claims that academies are used to replace “failing” schools. However a recent report by the Telegraph newspaper found that out of the 68 schools due to close or merge and be replaced by academies, only six are classed as failing by Ofsted, the schools standards office. The majority are improving, good or even excellent.

One such school is Islington Green in north London. At its last Ofsted report in 2003 the school was found to be improving.

Last week the school was praised by the Mayor of London’s office for significant achievements over the past year.

At a ceremony in central London, unelected schools minister Lord Adonis, who supports the closure of Islington Green, unveiled a London Underground style map that had been altered to celebrate London schools that have performed particularly well. Islington Green School was among them.

Over the past three years the number of pupils achieving five A* to C grade GCSEs including English and maths at Islington Green has improved from 16 percent in 2003 to 30 percent in 2006. The number of pupils with five good passes in all subjects has improved from 28 percent in 2003 to 40 percent in 2006.

Yet on Thursday this week Islington council was set to make a final decision about closing Islington Green and transforming it into a city academy – because it is a “failing” school.

“How can Lord Adonis insist that Islington Green is so poor that it needs taking over by private managers as a city academy, and still unveil a map that indicates what an excellent school it is?” asked Nick Grant, Ealing secretary of the NUT teachers’ union.

While the government is busy throwing money into replacing good schools with city academies, those that have opened so far have achieved mixed results.

A report by management consultants Price Waterhouse Coopers last July found that the difference in standards between academies and the schools they replaced were “generally small”.

Former Labour minister Karen Buck added to the sense of failure surrounding many academies when she removed her son from the Paddington Academy in west London last month after just one term.

The school, which has cost the taxpayer £25 million, has a deficit of £900,000 – and the new building is yet to be completed.

Opposition to the closure of schools is growing. In Islington and Oldham, where the council is proposing to close or merge five schools, protests will see hundreds of teachers, parents and pupils take to the streets over the next few weeks.

Mac Andrassy is helping organise the protests in Oldham. “We have had two union meetings in the past week. They have both been really well attended with over 50 coming along to one,” he said. “The mood against the council is really strong.

“One teacher summed up the mood, saying, ‘This is not why I came into teaching. I want to work in the public sector’.”

No academy at Islington Green School
Lobby of Islington schools organisation committee, Thursday 18 January, 5.30pm. Meet outside Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, London N1.

Oldham anti-academies protest
Saturday 27 January, 11.30am, behind Oldham Civic Centre, West Street.

Labels: A Good Local School for Every Child

Some people still say that the 2 million people who marched against the invassion of Iraq in February 2003 did not make a diference. The same people aslo say that marching again on the 24th of February this year will not make a diference. This is a ridiculous idea. i will explain why!

If people in every major world capitol city had not protested against the Wars on Afghanistan and Iraq then France may have gone along with the US plans, pro War Prime Ministers Belesconi in Italy and Asnar in Spain would still be in power and supporting the war with troops, Greece would have sent troops and countless others would have been more complicite or stayed involved with the 'coalition of the willing' for longer.

Iraq would have been bombed twice as much as it has been - 100,000 people died in the first two weeks of 1990 air strikes partly because there was no mass mobilisation of anti war activists in the US and UK. Iran and Siria, Lebanon and Palestine would be under US led occupations by now. Not for the good of working people but to extend multi the nationals profit base and extract oil to make profit for people who are already far to rich. Its possible that Somalia, Nigeria and Sudan would be under the same fate.

With more military support from 'Pro US' Governments the US would not be tied up in Iraq. Instead they may well have re-engaged in South America. Venezuala, Nicuagua, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile may have experienced interventions by now with the aim of countering growing rejection of US dominated economics.

Of course we may well still see an atempt to carry out much of this! What some people don't realise, until the bastard come directly for them, is how much resistance ordinary people are putting up around the world on a day to day basis.

Not all of this comes in the form of mass anti war demonstrations, much if not much more of it happens in workplaces or colleges in the shape of strikes and other industrial action and is far more effective and does have the potential to actually Stop the War. However the mass mobilisations builds confidence and support for the industrial struggle, it provide a clear political focus for a broad range of people.

We must continue to organise in the workplace and on the streets. Join Us.

Demonstrate on the 24th of Febuary 2006.
For coaches from Cambridge visit www.stopwar.org.uk/cambridge
For other transport visit www.stopwar.org.uk

Labels: Stop the War

George Bush’s announcement this morning was inevitable. 20,000 more US marines to help ‘free Iraq’ and end the ‘civil war’.


He says the majority will be used in Baghdad to work with Iraqi forces on activities like ‘neighbourhood clearance’. What a hideous concept, another act of terror dressed up in media friendly language like: friendly fire, daisy-cutters, humanitarian wars, hearts and minds and bringing democracy – we just don’t buy it any more.

Neighbourhood Clearances may sound like a reconstruction operation. But realistically Bush has just given US forces, along with the last of the pro US Iraqis, carte blanche for a continued and escalated house by house raid and searches stratagy. The intention – to find people who are against the US occupation. That includes almost everyone who has not joined the Iraqi army and even some of those in the Iraqi army. This plan will inevitably lead to hundreds and thousands of deaths and further resentment of the occupying forces, another generation of traumatized US soldiers end, if you thought it possible, more sectarian chaos.

The situation at home could not be more clear. A huge ground swell of public opinion against the continuing war both in the UK and the US has been topped by an outcry at Saddam Hussein’s execution. Scared as to what would be revealed if he was tried in the Hague, the western establishment has just sighed relief whilst distancing themselves from the grizzly deed.

The public knows that in Saddam Hussein vital evidence has been destroyed. Justice has not been done. Only one of the partners in the crimes committed against Kurds, Iraqis, Iranians and Kuwaiti's during the 80’s and 90’s has been held to account.

Labels: Stop the War

Councillor Alan Baker’s inability to state a clear political position when discussing planning has led to a debate in the letters page about population, the environment and sustainability. Unlike Councillor Baker I have stated over and over that the health, education, transport and other infrastructure in Cambridge are stretched beyond their limits – as they are in many other parts of the country and globally.

However I disagree very strongly with the general tone of the debate that has blamed Population growth for; putting pressure on our resources, causing climate change, creating famine and for all territorial conflict. We must remember that the cause of all of these crimes lay with a very small minority. That is the 5% of the global population who own 80% of the world’s resources and who are so greedy and so stupid that they would prefer to see the planet die than redistribute any of it. The blame, however, must also stretch to our councillors. Time and time again they are unable to provide any clear analysis or give any direction. They take the heat for our leaders who see it fit to build weapons instead of schools and hospitals and who invade other countries for oil instead of creating an environmentally sound infrastructure fit for all of the world’s children.

There is plenty of room for us all, just not in they way we choose to structure things at the moment.

Labels: Unite/Anti Racism